


A plague on both your houses

by thett



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: First Time, M/M, Unresolved Emotional Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension, all kinds of tension are unresolved, almost like dirty talk in this case, and then ka-boom, science talk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-22
Updated: 2018-04-22
Packaged: 2019-04-26 02:03:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14391909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thett/pseuds/thett
Summary: Something fragile and heavy tossed and turned in his chest, sharp edges cut from the inside, and there was only one salvation from this.





	A plague on both your houses

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Чума на оба ваши дома](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14289345) by [thett](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thett/pseuds/thett). 



> sorry for stupid mistakes! my first and main language is Russian. I read well in English but do not write well enough :F open to any constructive criticism. just want to spread the love for these two!

The air in the lab was stuffy. It smelled like salt, sulfur and chalk; somehow all the odors mixed up to become the aroma of old newspapers. Living long enough, Gottlieb was able to catch the last years of paper industry. There were stacks of his parents’ archives in the pantry of old house. The boiler room through the wall gave enough heat to keep the papers safe. Pantry was dark and dry and smelled like printing ink. Words left marks on Gottlieb’s fingertips as he flipped through pages looking for a permanent rubric of logic exercises.  
He still suffered from lack of light, even here and now. Generators switched to energy saving mode after the sunset. His chalkboard was framed with some good soffits, but the rest of the lab drowned in yellow shadows. Headache was deaf and dull - after 12-hour workday any stimulus pulled the hoop of migraine ever tighter. The equation didn’t converge. Gottlieb slipped down the stair and retreated from the board, trying to find unnecessary part of conclusions to make room for more futile efforts.  
The minds far greater than his had given up on bringing together GTR and Standard model. Gottlieb wouldn’t even come close to quantum physics paradoxes if he didn’t stuck with one simple circumstance sounding like “gravity isn’t quantized” - and without threshold values the fate of calculation program was predicted. Gottlieb spent a couple of weeks diving in code, after which he gave up trying to compile a working version and moved to a chalkboard, remembering student years. Skin on his fingers soon was exfoliating and covered with tiny cracks.  
And don’t forget the music. All of it was bearable if not for Geiszler. Gottlieb didn’t think a lot of himself, but he had experience in the field and he had resources. A whole team of developers ready to solve any problem of realisation and a circle of former colleagues and classmates who joined the discussion on theoretical problems. Together they could do it. But the sooner the better, and better it would be yesterday, and Geiszler listened to some frivolous punk pop mixed with clanking metal, and had no proper soundproof system in his Sennheisers.  
"Quiet," said Gottlieb, accompanying his words by tapping the cane on the table leg.  
Geiszler kicked the cane and took down the headphones. “My jet was ill,” sang the headphones, “incurably ill, ill to the death”.  
“Turn it off.”  
“It’s quality music, man. Don’t you like it?” Gottlieb was looking on the board but had a feeling of mischievous smirk on the back of his head.  
“I prefer to work in silence.”  
“Quit it. You listened to the Beatles four hours in a row last week.”  
“The Beatles is classic. And rewriting code behind these blockheads doesn’t count as work.”  
“How’s the progress?”  
“As you see.” Gottlieb nodded at the chalkboard. “Сrappy natural science. Crappy physics.”  
“I would ask!” The faithful adept of natural science Geiszler was indignant. “If you do not succeed, it does not mean that physics is bad.”  
“Of course.” Confirmed Gottlieb. “Physics is just great. So am I. And we don’t work together well.”  
"Shaken, not stirred. By the way, you have a great self-esteem. Surprising, given that you always screw up.”  
If Gottlieb heard something like that last line from a stranger he would just shrug. If he heard it from a friend he would assume he is being hit on. Geiszler wasn’t a stranger and didn’t become a friend; he checked the boundaries of Gottlieb for strength constantly, he scattered his belongings and inappropriate hints looking like insults.  
“Look who’s talking.” Singsonged Gottlieb, feeling resonating anger. “It says the man who looked for the kaiju limbic system for half a year.”  
“And found it.”  
“After two Mark IV crews, equipped with neuro-guns, were evacuated under the cover of good old Mark III with a plasma machete.”  
“It was a promising development. If I was supplied with fresh material a little more often than once a quarter, the results would be overwhelming.”  
“Not otherwise as so Pentecost folded the project," Gottlieb said pleasantly.  
“You know what.” Geiszler run short of breath, blinked twice with his stupid eyes. “This is the last drop. Adios. My patience is over.”  
“Again?”  
“I’m moving to another lab.”  
“Right now?”  
"Yes," Geiszler barked, brushing the sections of fabrics and samples into the tray, "tomorrow I'll ask Pentecost for a separate room."  
“Because we have so many of them.”  
“For me there is. You’re standing in the way of my workflow.”  
"I'm in the way," Gottlieb asked, astonished at the hysterical notes in his own voice, "I’m in the way? Am I rotating Billie Idol all day long? Am I scattering the contents of kaiju intestine throughout the lab? Did I infect a working machine with a porn virus?”  
Geiszler was silent, evidently having reached the last stage of anger, and turned away, concentratedly dumping the contents of his desktop into a plastic container for moving. They settled in the lab an year ago and have not yet returned the boxes to the warehouse. Bad sign. Scalpels, pens and syringes for biopsy flew to the tray. Geiszler took hold of the heavy microscope, intending to carry it too; before that he had not reach this point. Gottlieb grabbed his wrist.  
"This is my microscope."  
"Like hell it is," Geiszler spat out. "I'm doing crappy natural sciences here. You can keep the chalks for yourself.”  
“Put it in its place.”  
"Fuck off, Hermann," Geiszler's eyes were dry and red. “Seriously. I can’t take it anymore.”  
"I think I asked you not to address me by name."  
"I think I asked you to fuck off."  
"You're a virus," said Gottlieb, "a plague. You need to be isolated."  
He squeezed the skin, muscle and bones, until something snapped under his grip. Geiszler unclasped his fingers; the microscope gently dropped to the table, and Gottlieb leaned in and stamped a kiss - a bite? - into his chapped lips. Lips dodged, kiss hit the cheek. Geiszler stood still, without moving, and something dark and terrible, tired of Gottlieb's attacks, flashed in his gaze. Gottlieb was waiting to be punched in the face, perhaps with the same microscope, and took a step back. Geiszler stepped forward, looking straight ahead, and returned the kiss. Immediately opened lips with his tongue, screwed into the mouth, and got into resonance - right away, as if there had not been fifty weeks of cautious gazing, exchange of sticks and stones, an excruciating lapping, as distant as correspondence of their youth. Level of psychological compatibility: fifty-six percent. The level of physiological compatibility: you’re not to check.  
Tattoos rose under the rolled-up sleeves and descended into the scruff of the neck. Small buttons slipped out of corny fingers. Geiszler pushed the hands, took off his shirt, exposed bare neck - he knew, he sensed what was catching an eye. Bending in uncomfortable curve, Gottlieb outlined a fantasy cloud under the collarbone with his tongue. Below, the giant kaiju smiled insolently.  
“I respect your tastes, but kissing with kaiju is a little too much.”  
“You're lying. You don’t respect anything. Better kiss me.”  
It was easy to implement: ten centimeters is the perfect height gap. Geiszler puffed amusingly, and Gottlieb's penis was aching in the trousers, and his headache was gone. Geiszler backed away, settled on an unusually clean table, pulled him into the hot space of his body, smell and taste. The palms slid over the waistband of his jeans as smoothly as if all they’ve been doing through the year was fucking on tables.  
“Do you have them on behind too?” Gottlieb couldn’t resist the ridiculous question.  
"Try me," Geiszler winked.  
All in good time. Gottlieb just overcame his aversion to kaiju and proceeded a detailed investigation of his torso. After completing his studies and passing the exam on Ranger, Geiszler abandoned the exercises and as a result acquired softness; bulging belly beckoned to bite, to leave a mark. It was something Gottlieb had never had - roundness, suppleness, a willingness to compromise and adjust to circumstances.  
Difference in the potentials shorted him out, electrocuted his palms and lips. Geiszler managed to get under the shirt, fingered shoulder blades, followed the relief of ribs. Gottlieb didn’t complain of heat exchange, but this indiscriminate embrace leaded him from heat and into the cold. The noise of ventilation was like sea pitching. The frame of vision blurred and darkened around the edges; only what was right before his eyes came into the focus. Gold waves poured downward from the navel. A soft crease of the belly was clamped on the belt.  
"Your mouth," said Geiszler, "my dick. What do you think about it?”  
"You will do without," said Gottlieb, just out of harm. The combination was promising and required verification. But not now, on a wave of adrenaline and fatigue. Later, in a more suitable setting.  
"I will have mercy of your knee," Geiszler didn’t take offense, "come here."  
A hot hand caught Gottlieb by the waist and squeezed him close, chest to chest. Geiszler stuck to his mouth with an open, wet kiss, and then, without taking his eyes, - as if he was checking, - spitted in his palm. Heart was beating black and booming.  
"That's not going to work," protested Gottlieb, "you've been dissecting someone's spleen with these same hands."  
"As if yours are better."  
"Chalk, unlike the spleen, will not corrode my skin."  
“Chalk is made of bones of dinosaurs. And dinosaurs are kaiju.”  
“These kaiju are everywhere. Can we stay alone for a minute?”  
"Why not? Twenty floors, three corridors, and we're there. Your place or mine?”  
"Here," said Gottlieb, "on your stomach, please."  
He yanked Geiszler’s shoulder, reinforcing the request with action; knelt down, tangling in trousers, and lavished the inside of his hips generously, leaving a clear, thick saliva on the red, like naked muscles, tattoo.  
"Not that I was against such a development, but aren’t you in too much of a hurry?"  
"Relax," Gottlieb advised, "and squeeze your legs."  
“So relax or squeeze? Oh. That's it.”  
"It's called Oxford Style."  
"You did not go to Oxford, did you?"  
"I'll tell you a terrible secret," Gottlieb said in his ear, "to do this, you do not need to go to Oxford."  
His ass (tattooed, of course - how else) had Gottlieb’s prick like a glove. Sweat and saliva did their job - it was easy to move, disheveled hair on the vertex smelled something soothing and simultaneously infuriating, prompting Gottlieb to move without looking back faster and faster. The drizzle of Geiszler's breath was cold on metal table, palms were chained on the edge. Gottlieb embraced his neck, lifting it up, adjusting it to himself; Geiszler gave in, pulling his head back, offering jaw to a kiss, fitting hips into hips. The best companion (always when he was silent), the fanboy of murderous sea monsters and teenage music - how he irritated Gottlieb, infuriating at first sight; and how he approached, with every bulge and every notch.  
Gottlieb held him in both arms, one by the neck, the other by the dick, squinting so as not to look at the jar with the kaiju's insides, and dying at every jolt. Painful breathing broke out in sobs, Geiszler trembled with tension, making his way through and remaining in place, under Gottlieb, where he was supposed to be. Something fragile and heavy tossed and turned in his chest, sharp edges cut from the inside, and there was only one salvation from this. Gottlieb wanked him in perfect harmony with his pace, moving forward, into cramped and sweet, and back - into the cold, into an indifferent yellow light, and did not particularly count on luck, but when he didn’t have the strength to hold back, Geiszler demandedly pushed forward, chaotically twitching in his grasp, and after a dozen quick jerks bent, dropping head on folded hands, tearing his back from Gottlieb's chest with obscene wet clap. Waves floated on the base of his neck, under the waves hid warm skin. The scent of aftershave has weathered hours ago. The gel remaining on his hair tickled Gottlieb’s nose. Gottlieb leaned after him, fumbling into the limp hips, deeply inhaling the smell, biting his lip so as not to grasp the shoulder.  
Unprovable like Fermat's Last Theorem and scary like childhood in a private school - the intimacy was frightening, and yet it was necessary, and Geiszler looked around with his short-sighted eyes, twisting his neck, finding no tact or courage to turn away. He reached - flexible, salty - for cool lips, his breath caught, and fear washed away by a wave of ocean water coming down from the sky.  
Imagine an archer who shoots an arrow at a target. To reach the target, the arrow overcomes first half the way, then half from the remaining distance, then another half from the remaining distance to the target, etc.  
Will the arrow reach the target?  
"I saw the trailer, and I liked it," Geiszler said dully, "maybe it's worth buying tickets for this movie."  
"Subscription," agreed Gottlieb, rolling over to the table next to him, "if that exists. For all ten seasons.”  
“Do you think we will last ten seasons?” hesitated Geiszler, “you are a buzzkill and you kick me out of lab every time when your equation doesn’t converge.  
Gottlieb groaned.  
"You spoiled it again."  
Geiszler rummaged through the container, pulled out a rag - there were no signs of pulp on it, right? - and began to wipe himself busily.  
"You spoil everything yourself. Try to drop gravity. In general, as a class.”  
“It doesn’t make sense. How can we continue without the gravity.”  
"Really, how can we," Geiszler nodded, drawing himself to Gottlieb and affirming the existence of an irresistible force with a kiss.  
Geiszler’s sacrilege at first glance didn’t make sense, but Gottlieb had been swimming in these waters for a long time and knew that sometimes the most unimaginable ways lead to brilliant results.  
"See," Geiszler remarked smugly, "and my music no longer interferes."  
Hermann heeded. Forgotten headphones buried the plane for the hundredth time in a day.  
"In your place I wouldn’t expect that I'll ever like it."  
“In my place I’ve listened, listen and I will listen to harsh brutal punks.”  
“What a pity that I'm not harsh, not brutal and certainly not punk.”  
"That's why I don’t listen to you," Geisler grinned, "Hermann. Can I call you that now?”


End file.
